New Radeon 17.12.1 update should be an adrenaline rush for gamers

AMD's Radeon cards have always been a viable alternative to Nvidia's gaming offerings, mainly because of the software suite that went along with it, allowing fast updates, an at-a-glance snapshot of your system, and some extra tools that gamers find useful. To that end, the company has released update 17.12.1 today - dubbed the Adrenaline Edition - that is even more feature rich than before.

The biggest change is an overlay for games - activated by Alt-R - that allows users to change settings on the fly without having to alt-tab out to do the requisite work. The overlay gives you access to all the basic Radeon features, such as ReLive for streaming and capture, FreeSync enabling, framerate tweaking, and even color adjustments.

Also as part of the update, ReLive now has chat options that will allow you to interact with viewers while you are streaming.

"Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition continues to set the bar high with remarkable features for allowing gamers to connect with other gamers around the world," Andrej Zdravkovic, corporate vice president of software, Radeon Technologies Group, said in the company's obligatory official statement. "Now gamers can tailor their gaming experience directly in-game, use our groundbreaking AMD Link mobile app to monitor their gaming performance on their phone, and in an instant, share their best highlights to their streaming platforms and social networks of choice. We've designed Adrenalin Edition as a powerful tool for those who aspire to achieve gaming greatness among friends and the community."

Here is the full list of changes:

Radeon Settings

Added new Connect tab which houses new social engagement features.

Added new Gallery tab for Radeon ReLive recording file management, video trimming, and social platform sharing functionality.

Added new Accounts tab to connect ReLive content and upload sharing to social platforms

Added new Resource Center tab highlighting informative guides and instructions for Radeon Software features.

Added new Performance Monitoring tab.

Added three UI themes for Radeon Settings customization.

Added new AMD Link tab to connect Radeon Settings to the AMD Link mobile application.

Radeon Overlay

Added new Overlay feature (default ALT+R) allowing management of certain Radeon Settings features while in-game or on desktop such as Radeon ReLive, Radeon FreeSync, Radeon Chill, Frame Rate Target Control, Display Color, and Performance Monitoring.

Added performance monitoring overlay to display system performance metrics in DirectX® 9, 11, 12, and Vulkan™ applications.

Added performance logging feature to save performance metrics to a file.

Radeon ReLive

Further optimized for lower FPS overhead while using Radeon ReLive for recording. (RS-198)

Added support for Vulkan™ API.

Added support for Eyefinity.

Added support for borderless window region capture.

Added support for mouse button hotkeys.

Added chat and viewer count overlay for Radeon ReLive live streaming to supported platforms.

Added Chroma Key support to allow background transparency when using a webcam.

Now supports expanded social platforms.

Now supports separate microphone and audio track recording.

Radeon Chill

Radeon Chill now has expanded support for most game titles.

Enhanced Sync

Added support for all GCN-based Radeon graphics products.

Added support for Vulkan™ API.

Added support Multi-GPU configurations.

Added support for Eyefinity configurations.

Radeon WattMan

Added new profile functionality to save and load user defined Radeon WattMan profile configurations to local hard disk.

Frame Rate Target Control

Added support for Vulkan™ API.

Radeon FreeSync

Added support for HDR10 titles with Radeon FreeSync2 displays.

Added per-application Radeon FreeSync support.

As far as Resolved and Known Issues:

Resolved Issues

OverWatch™ may experience a random or intermittent hang on some system configurations.

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six® Siege may experience an application hang when breaching walls with grenades or explosives.

Netflix playback in a browser or via UWP application may experience stutter.

After recording with Radeon ReLive GPU usage and clocks may remain in high states.

Assassin's Creed®: Origins may experience bright or saturated lighting in cave missions.

Mass Effect Andromeda™ may have issues enabling HDR10 on an HDR capable display.

Forza™ Horizon 3 may experience corruption on rocks or foliage during gameplay.

Halo™ Wars 2 may experience a crash on game launch.

Enabling HBCC on Radeon RX Vega in multi GPU system configurations may cause the secondary graphics card to be hidden in Radeon Settings until reboot.

Resizing the Radeon Settings window may cause the UI to restart or hang with HBCC enabled.

Known Issues

Upgrading Radeon Software with Radeon RX Vega series graphics products in multi GPU on X99 chipsets may cause system instability after reboot.

Radeon Settings may experience a hang when enabling AMD CrossFire with three or more graphics products.

Performance Metrics Overlay may hang if enabled when cycling display power off and on.

Trimming videos may fail to create a thumbnail if the video contains non-English characters.

3x1 display configurations may experience instability during Eyefinity creation or during gaming.

The "Reset" function in Radeon Settings for Display, ReLive, and Video may not work as intended when using Radeon Settings in certain regional languages.

Radeon WattMan may intermittently fail to load profiles for Radeon RX Vega on the global Radeon Wattman page.

Rise of the Tomb Raider™ may experience an intermittent application hang during gameplay.

A random system hang may be experienced after extended periods of use on system configurations using 12 GPU's for compute workloads.

The GPU Workload feature may cause a system hang when switching to Compute while AMD CrossFire is enabled. A workaround is to disable AMD CrossFire before switching the toggle to Compute workloads.